I started playing piano at a very young age, both of my older sisters had mandatory piano lessons that they hated so by the time it got to me my parents didn't even bother. We did still have a piano that I was drawn to, and immediately I was writing my own songs - that first note I ever played on a piano was part of a compositional effort, by the time I was 12 years old I was writing a lot of piano ditties. At that time my family moved to Paris, France, and I begged my father to buy me a keyboard for that Christmas of 1986, which I was lucky enough to get and it came with a 3-track sequencer. Around this time as well I started listening to the Cure, which would remain a seminal influence for me to this day.

At my school, the American School of Paris, I quickly developed a good relationship with the electronic music teacher (Chris Chater) and I was in his course every semester, which was my first experience with midi and sound modules. I became good friends with Adam Cohen (He is signed to EMI Canada, I believe), the son of Leonard Cohen who is my age and was a student at ASP at that time. We were both just beginning our careers as songwriters. Another student at that time who was a year younger than us was Chris Stills (V2 records), the son of Stephen Stills who incidentally took the same bus to school that I did.

In Paris I also began a lifelong fascination and appreciation for poetry, which was to become my major in college. When I returned to the US, I began to play guitar as well, but about 5 years would go by before I would actually invest in a guitar for myself. Having already taught myself much about music theory, it was easy to conceptualize which notes the strings were, and so forth, so playing upside down and backwards as I continue to do was a logical choice. Later, in college, I would stumble across a few records by Elizabeth Cotten that would reinforce my confidence in such a unique style of fingerpicking. My last year in High School would finally see me taking my first music theory lessons, but at this point I found it was largely unnecessary - although I had a very good teacher by the name of Anthony LaMagra, I never found the satisfaction in classical performance that I got from songwriting, so in the end he became more of a theory mentor and friend than a performance teacher.

I went to college in the summer of 1991 at Madison, WI, and quickly began performing in a number of local clubs with numerous cover bands strictly as a piano player. I was never interested in playing anything but piano, and then later electric piano, and organ. I abhorred the idea of a keyboard player constantly flipping through different patches. I took a job as a record store clerk in the shop of a friend, and it seemed by very fortunate luck that the same summer, I think in 1993, I happened to be working in a record store when both Soul Coughing and G Love would both be featured on the same CMJ promo disc. That was a glorious summer, and they both remain very important influences for me.

After soundcheck for a show at Shank Hall in Milwaukee around the same time, I stumbled across a review of Chris Whitley's Dirt Floor. Thus was born another lifelong appreciation for me, and to this day I consider myself foremost a student and follower of Chris's sensibility and vocal intonations, if not directly of his style of songwriting which has gone through a number of different transformations. My band throughout those years was called Sunshine Allison, and we released two records on our own label and toured the region incessantly. Among our most glamorous shows in those days was an appearance with Soul Asylum at an outdoor festival in Iowa and an opener at the Cubby Bear in Chicago for Leftover Salmon, who praised our eclectic flavor of progressive rock.

As time went on, I began to yearn for a simpler, more lyric-oriented approach to the band's presentation which was at the time more weighted towards long instrumentals and drum-circle type interludes, which to this day is largely responsible for my percussive style - especially on the organ, which arose from long hours in practice on the agogo bells and the shaker.

So I moved to Los Angeles, in the summer of '99, and quickly became involved with a band called Revolver principally as a keyboard player, as well as a band called Paper Sun where I was also a co-writer and singer. With both bands I played the local scene from 2001-2002 at places like the Roxy, Molly Malone's, the Dragonfly, Zen Sushi, the Hotel Cafe, and the Mint. After Revolver had been shopped to Elektra records by Tom DiSavia (now a V.P. over at ASCAP) and just barely missed the cut, I began to conceive of a solo project where I am the sole writer and producer. My third project Arms Around the River was released this Spring. Aside from those already mentioned, since I have been in Los Angeles, I have had the pleasure of working with such artists as:

BILLIE MYERS
FRANKIE JORDAN
MATT MAHAFFEY
DAWN ROBINSON
CHEYENNE KIMBALL
SHANE ALEXANDER
50 CENT HAIRCUT
WHITESTARR
SAUCY MONKY
LOONER
CHRIS PIERCE
SHAWN PANDER

to name some of my favorites. I have appeared on MTV twice now, both times with Epic artist Cheyenne Kimball (once for a live broadcast to HDTV called Music with Altitude shot in Breckenridge, CO, and once during an episode of her reality show for MTV simply called Cheyenne).

My song 'Throw Your Arms Around Me' has been featured prominently in a movie called A Colombia directed by Ryan Byrne that has won a number of awards from 2005-2007.

I continue to write songs just a little bit faster than I can record them.